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The vouchers have come from the Zoflora Facebook page and a competition they were running recently.

The SIM has come by accident as I clicked on the wrong answer on an advert on one of the IPC daily entry competition sites. I wasn’t too bothered as just receiving a SIM card is not really a problem, or so I thought. This one has come from ‘the people’s operator’ and I am horrified by what they have sent out. The envelope containing the SIM has a sticker on it bearing the words “This TPO SIM was beautifully packed by Daniella, music-lover from Hertfordshire.” On closer examination, the sticker had obviously been lifted and stuck down again with glue which had also spread to other parts of this small envelope sticking everything together. After seeing this I took a really close look at the SIM when I managed to get it out of there and noticed a piece of tape over it, turning it over it is obvious that this is a used SIM card (look closely in the photo and you can see it doesn’t line up correctly and has been removed from the plastic it was housed in before arriving with me) and this is why my reaction, how can I be sure the user of this card before it arrived on my doorstep wasn’t involved in anything criminal? Obviously I can’t and so the only option I can come up with is to bin the card and hope that is the end of it. I really hope if any of you are using this company that you are being very careful as they obviously aren’t!

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As you all know a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to win a picnic from Higgidy filled with lots of vouchers to try some products out. Well I decided to try the Little Smoked Bacon and Cheddar Quiche with my Higgidy voucher. When I ate it I found it to be lovely and cheesy, very creamy with a really lovely texture, it was one of the best quiches I’d ever eaten so when we were looking for a snack the next weekend I decided to get another for myself but my experience couldn’t have been more different. Each slice I took from it produced large stringy bits of onion stuck to the knife and there was even more onion still in the quiche itself. I don’t mind onion in a quiche but for me I prefer it to be either a hidden ingredient and cooked really well into the custard part or almost raw so it’s crunchy, I really don’t get any enjoyment from eating a stringy slimy piece of onion and so I wrote to them and asked which type of quiche was normal. They responded that my second one didn’t sound right but they could see nothing wrong from their end and offered me a voucher to purchase another product which I accepted and it arrived within a couple of days.

Last week Dave had a trip out with work so I planned ahead and used my voucher to get myself something (hopefully) delicious for my tea. I still felt a bit concerned about the quiche’s so I decided to try a pie and after reading the reviews on it I plumped for the Chicken Pot Pie with Ham and Leek

Sorry the pie’s not in the box but it’s only really after contemplating my experience that I’ve decided to write this and I thought I’d throw in a photo to break up all the text ….. it was either the box, or a cute one of next door’s cat!lol

Anyway, I cooked (or heated) the pie as per the instructions and have to say it smelled very lovely when it came out of the oven. Now I know I’m probably slightly odd here but I love the puff pastry tops on pies so I always cut them off and save them till last!lol But it was once the top was off I noticed just how much creamy leek was in the pie. I decided to fish about in the filling and came up with 3 small (about 1.0 x 0.5 x 0.5 cm) chunks of chicken and 8 tiny (0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 cm max – some smaller) cubes of ham and the rest of the pastry case was filled with leeks in a creamy mustard sauce.

I have to admit here that the pastry was gorgeous, the chicken (what little there was) was lovely and moist, the ham was a bit tasteless and just hard and the cream sauce was very tasty. The leeks themselves however were not nice, the few I tasted were not cooked well, they were kind of plastiky in texture but they filled up around 2/3 to 3/4 of the pie and so I found it to be mostly inedible and even Dave (who will eat most things) said he wouldn’t have eaten it when he got home and saw what I’d had to leave.

Now, I know and understand that there are always discrepancies when products are made, not everyone can be the same but when I purchase a CHICKEN pot pie, I expect the primary ingredient of the filling to be CHICKEN not leek and especially when they charge £3.50 for said pie. So for me, I’m never going to take the chance again, out of 3 experiences I’ve had 2 which were awful and even though the first was excellent, I really don’t feel like I have any trust left in the company and felt I wanted to share my experience and my opinions with my friends.

I’ve been a member of Shopcade for a very long time and have been telling you all about it when I receive things from redeeming points or winning things with them right here. Well it’s about time I told you all about them now really isn’t it?lol

Shopcade is a Facebook app (soon to include Twitter and email login’s as well though) that claims it’s mission is ‘To help you shop savvier while saving time and money!’ and they more than live up to it!

Cashback and offers on your shopping – By simply adding items to your want lists and letting Shopcade know what you are interested in they can let you know when there are offers on the products you want so you know when it is the best (most cost-effective) time to buy and when you do buy, you get cashback too!

Trend Score – By interacting with the App (following people, adding items to your want lists, inviting people to join and shopping through them) you develop a trend score. The higher it is the better the rewards you can get from the site in addition to the ones mentioned above.

Points – You gain points from a variety of different methods. Logging in each day, following people, adding items to your wants, when a friend accepts your invite, when people follow you or add things you were the first to add and sometimes there are special games or missions which gain you extra points as well. These all soon add up and can be used for:

Rewards – Rewards are goods, vouchers and discounts that you can use your points to purchase, the higher the value, the more points it costs and also the higher your trend score would need to be to enable you to purchase it.

Competitions – You can use your points to purchase extra entries into their regular competitions. When it’s a draw you can buy extra tickets, when it’s a Lucky spin you can purchase additional spins.

So if all that’s not been enough to convince you to go have a look, maybe take a look here at the items I’ve redeemed points for over the last few months, if I can do it so can you too!

I have written this blog post with my own personal view of Shopcade but this blog post is a competition entry, you can see more details about this here and maybe join up and enter yourself too!

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I was very lucky recently and was chosen as one of 25 people who would receive 10 samples from the lovely people at Essentially-me to test and review with one to be chosen to recieve the amazing opportunity of having their own perfume designed for them.

The 10 perfumes I recieved are: White Bloom, Kuan Yin, Chypre, Fauve, La Joupe, Classique, Amber, Tangos, Souk and Trade Wind. If you are interested in the different notes and tones used in each perfume then please feel free to follow this link to their website where there are details about this, my reviews of these will be about my opinions of them and how they react with me.

White Bloom

This really lives up to it’s name, you can smell all sorts of white blossoms as soon as you put it on and they all mesh together really well, it’s kind of like a walk in a monochrome garden, as it lingers it gets a bit warmer which is lovely, well, who wouldn’t enjoy a bit of spice in a beautifully fragrant garden 😉

Kuan Yin

I’m not really sure what to make of this one, it reminds me of something but I cant quite put my finger on it, I think it’s something from my childhood and whatever it is it’s making me smile so it’s nothing bad but it is incredibly frustrating! Anyway, it’s another lovely perfume which I’d be very happy to use any day 🙂

Chypre

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm is all I can think about this one right now, it smells just like parma violets on me and I love those little purple sweets! It’s nice and light, sweet and slightly floral and just makes me smile when I catch a sniff as I move about today 😀

Fauve

This one reminds me of medicine, it’s slightly spicy but under it all I can smell a medical smell which for me doesn’t really work well but as we all know perfumes smell different on everyone this might smell lovely on you 😉

La Joupe

When I put this on to me it smelled a lot like aftershave so I put it on D and it smells really nice on him, makes him very yummy! It’s a nice spicy scent and so very warming and somewhat comforting and there seems to be a hint of some flower under it all which is really nice 😀

Classique

When I first put this on, the only way I can describe it was as if some vicks vapour-rub had been out boozing all day & night, it was a strange mix of scents but as it developed and settled on my skin it mellowed a lot and although I still think it smells slightly of vicks, it’s much more pleasant but on trying this on my ever obliging OH, we found it had a very strange scent, one I cant quite describe and both decided that this one really isn’t one we’d use again!

Amber

This is another memories one for me, when I first applied it I was hit with a ton of spicy notes but as they mellowed and the perfume warmed to me I found some almost fruity notes hidden away which round this one off very well, it’s very reminiscent of some of the incense that most of us have burnt at least once in our lifetimes!

Tangos

This I really like but only in small doses! I put a tiny amount on and really liked it so put some more on to wear it for the day and found it got a bit too overpowering for me, it’s nice but on me once it settled it was kind of like burnt spices which wasn’t very nice but when I wore a small amount of it I found it much nicer as other floral/menthol type scents came through more

Souk

This is another spicy fruit one and it’s lovely, made me smile just wearing it and as it developed more on me I decided I like this one more and more, there is something else there hidden behind the obvious scent but i just cant put my finger on what it is, whatever it is, it really works well and I have to say this is my favourite of them all so far, and only 1 more to go now! 🙂

Trade Wind

I really don’t know what to say about this one, as soon as the smell hit my nostrils my nose went into shock as it felt like they were being burned and I couldn’t smell a thing! I just really don’t like it at all. I asked D to see what his reaction was and he suggested it smells like “Grandma” and although we love his Grandma dearly, it’s not a good scent for us in a perfume …….. but it might be a great idea as to what to get her for Christmas! 😉

So thats my reviews, remember that all perfumes will smell differently depending on who they are on and as these are real scents and not chemically induced ones like many of the mass-produced perfumes they will not last as long on as you are used to but there’s nothing wrong with a little re-application now and again!

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Welcome to my Blog

A snapshot of my life, here I share with you the things I'm lucky enough to win and receive in the post and I have a bit of a ramble about other things that interest me or are important in my life right now.

I might also include the odd review if I get offered something or I find something I really need to share with you be it because it's fantastic or terrible!lol

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